I’ve had something on my mind, and I want to lay it out for discussion,
Do y’all consider this forum to be more about the advancement of pheromone technology, or a marketing strategy for androtics?
I think we (pheromone users) would benefit from the most unobjective assessment of effectiveness of these products.
I moved this to the lounge.
Sure it serves both, to market and to advance pheromones. What forum doesn’t serve to market products?
Cant it be both ? LOL 
Sure it helps to Market AD products. However the forum is attached to there store not the other way around. Lots of stores have forums where people can discuss there products. Forums are always good marketing tools. I dont think thats the only intention of this forum though or there would be deleting all the bad posts like other forums.
The putative testing and reporting helps AD and some advanced users understand what the molecules may or may not be doing. AD asks for reports good or bad because they want to advance the technology and be able to offer the best products for users. So I feel it advances technology along to some extent.
I do feel you get a unobjective opinion of these products here. There are good reviews, mediocre reviews and bad reviews here. What I like about this forum is you get to talk to other people who like and use the same stuff you do and get tips and share ideals with each other. One gripe people sometimes have is they wont allow you to discuss certain other companies here. I look at it this way, its AD’s forum and I respect that. They spend a lot of time and money keeping this forum going. It benefits both the company and the user. They feel they sell the highest quality products and they are proud of that and they should be. I use there products and I agree they are my favorites. Why should they promote for other companies ? Let them have there own forums.
I am a member of many forums of all kinds but this one is my favorite because of the people first and because the admin let me have my opinion without laying into me even when they dont like my opinion LOL. I have called them out on many things here over the years and they handled it without banning me, deleting or editing my posts. Cant say that for forums who claim to be about the “truth”. They only allow your opinion when your truth is their truth. People who know me well know Tisha doesn’t play that game.
Tish
We don’t allow mentions of certain products the same way most forums delete spam.
Some companies arent on here because we feel it’s a moral obligation to protect our clients & friends. Again, same way anybody removes spam or phishing.
No “blacklist” company isn’t on that list for anything less than safety.
Keep in mind that for example jvkohl enjoys this forum and we make no effort to block mention of his product or many others.
Of course we want you to use our products we arent running this forum for free. It’s expensive - fighting the attacks is expensive.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that we have a right to be careful and we’ve never crossed that line.
Of course it’s going to market and promote AD products to a degree as it’s funded and paid for by those products. However AD doesn’t sell love scents products. People post often about Scent of Eros, Primal, Essence of Woman etc. People often buy chem set A1 from other sites and post results experienced mixing it with Jerk or other products without censorship. So long as the product is from a reputable company I have seen no censorship. The only negative to using competitor products that I’ve seen is that it effects ones status as a reporting user…which is totally understandable imo.
RU’s get sweet discounts and freebies from AD on AD products because they help with research. AD is interested in testing their own products. Coke isn’t going to give you bonuses, discounts and freebies for using Pepsi products and reporting on it…it costs them and doesn’t help their own product R&D.
The only posts I see that cause raised eyebrows are the ones that obviously seem like spam promotional posting. First timers coming in and making posts that mention competitor product several times by name (in order to raise a products keyword density and relevance on search engine rankings) or to just try and get members here to go spend their money on a site that sells the product in question…usually made either by somebody working for that company or an independent linking people to their private site/blog where they profit from affiliate programs.
For a company that has a financial interest in all of this AD is remarkably tolerant of posts and discussion about competitor products so long as it’s a respectable and reputable company. Hell Savoy from Love Systems occasionally spams the forum with posts totally irrelevant to pheromones and has not been banned or had his topics deleted. (even though I was banned from his site for mentioning a product that he doesn’t sell a year ago)
I just want to clarify something…
Johnny didnt question the forum mentioning or not mentioning other companies. I used that as an example of one of the many gripes I have heard here over the years. Just to point out we are all quite human with our own gripes about various subjects that we are allowed to voice.
I dont have a problem with it, its not my gripe and I am aware its just the blacklisted companies that are unmentionable. I didnt mention it expecting an explanation for it because I am well aware the reasons. I mentioned it to point out that even when people have gripes, makes mistakes or just dont agree with AD staff that they dont kick you to the curb like other forums sometimes do. I was not implying they were not tolerant in any way… Spam is a totally different issue.
I of course am not saying dont discuss the subject. I just dont want my one example to over shadow Johnny’s original question or my response to it.
Jeez he didnt even give you a warning first ? That’s rude and uncalled for and exactly what I was referring to. They dont do that here.
Tisha
I understand, but I think that one issue that might make a person think that the forum is more for promoting AD products than for the advancement of the science in general would be witnessing/experiencing a negative response to mentioning of non-ad products.
Say a newbie starts lurking the forums and comes across a thread mentioning “brand X-lure” (I won’t contribute to their search relevance lol) and sees posts from staff or people assumed to be staff (I regularly get pm’s from people that assume I’m connected to Androtics) dismissing the product or even accusing the person posing the question. Now we (and for the most part most of the more experienced users) know what stuff is junk and why, but to a person new and curios they could read an exchange in a topic like that and come away with the impression that only AD products are too be discussed here and that the boards only purpose is AD’s self promotion. Newbies aren’t likely to realize that companies like Brand X contribute to the negative stigma of pheromones as a pseudo-science and rip off peoples money with products that either can’t live up to the claims or are simply haphazardly thrown together with no rationale behind the ratio’s and unpredictable or even possibly negative results. They don’t often understand the purpose for spamming forums and how it relates to search engine optimization, essentially using the disk space on Androtics servers and Androtics bandwidth for free advertising posed as a harmless question.
Knowing that a person can come to the perception that the forum is little more than Androtics advertising based off of situations like this is why I went into that aspect of the topic a little deeper. Basically the only thing I ever see on the board that would make a person think that it’s more a promotional tool than an educational one are events like this.
I totally agree which is why I chose that subject as a example. I think the GC area is another example. It is a promotion but when your promoting something people are passionate about it comes through in there response. We talked about the canned responses before. You can tell the difference.
Anywhoo…
I just didnt want to be misunderstood or take away from the original question and it seemed to be headed that way. When I get that vibe I find its always best to clarify what I was trying to convey because sometime its hard when your writing a response. Makes me feel better to LOL 
Personally… I find it surprising that people would find this forum nonobjective. When you really start to delve into the forum and read people’s posts, there personalities stand out. I know I dont know you or others here really. I could walk by you on the street and not know it but I find a realness in the people here I dont find in other forums. Its hard to explain…
We all have differing opinions and talk about them openly. Some people like this putative and hate this one. Others have great luck with one and see nothing with another. We praise and support each other, have fun, bitch, moan, complain and sometimes disagree like a family. I think its obvious we are all individuals who are sharing our experiences and opinions and not being bias.
Sure the forum is a great marketing tool. It could have even started out that way years ago when the store first opened but it has evolved into so much more then that over the years.
Tisha
The forum started for research and has continued to be so. The closest thing to marketing we do here is when we announce re-stocks or if a new consumer line comes out, and we do our best to keep that out of the research forums and keep them in the store section.
We really could have put ads all over and constantly push our products even when not asked, but I don’t think we’ve really done that.
The autolinks are there to help new people familiarize with what’s being mentioned and of course serves a marketing purpose.
It did start as research but we never made a conscious move to marketing here, its been a happy side effect of course. But I’d say this forum is marketing the same way that our excellent customer service and fantastic products made with care in the United States by our team of professional and skilled lab techn—… got carried away.
But you get the idea. Thanks for the query Johnny and Tisha/Radman for helping explain things.
Arggg Please dont LOL. Its so tacky
Your welcome but I didnt explain anything I was just giving my opinion LOL Thank you for your explanations though.
On a side note I think new people would really benefit from clicking on MHarris’s username and then going to his statistics page and clicking on all posts by MHarris and reading them all. If you want to know about mones this is where you will learn the most. If you want unbiased this is where you will see it. In the creator of the store. Its clear what the mission of the store is when you read his posts. Its why so many followed him here from LS. Good stuff, Required reading
Tisha
Speaking of promoting the site I can see conflict of the AD team vs the consumers (maybe not all consumers) . AD is selling their products and they want more consumers to buy their products b/c they need to make a profit. At the same time their are consumers who will not spread the word of AD and Pherotalk because that would give them more competition in their area, subsequently defeating the purpose of mones to “give you the edge.”
I’ve rarely heard anybody mention that. The attitude of wanting to keep the product from those around you is pretty poor/silly because these products were designed to make things better for everyone. Its about life improvement and if you don’t improve the world around you - where are you going to live this ‘better life’?
I think the main reason I was wondering this was due to the fact that it is so rare to see other companies products mentioned on the forum.
Don’t get me wrong, I support Androtics 100% I wasn’t accusing the forum of being managed in a disreputable way or anything of that nature. I just wonder if mixing AD products with those of other companies might open up some new avenues that hadn’t existed previously.
As far as my initial question, I think the reporting on the forum IS pretty objective for the most part, albeit subject to each individual user’s perception. That’s part of the reason I somewhat would like to see other companies mentioned on here, because I’ve come to trust what other people report, so if there are products being produced by other companies that differ vastly from AD products, I’d be interested to know how effective they are.
But I totally understand that this forum is managed by Androtics, so the discussion is naturally going to center on their products.
Wasn’t entirely directed at AD but here is one of the posts I came across when I first joined here.
Yeah its a silly attitude. People should want the world around them to be a better place and not want to hide things that will do that. 
Not too worried about it (the other guys using mones thing). Way I figure, it’s like this…
A.) Mones are a lot like pickup theory, out of a hundred guys fifty think it’s bunk that doesn’t work.
B.) Another twenty five think it might work, but are too embarrassed to admit they need help in that area and never try.
C.) Of the remaining twenty five that actually give it a shot, fifteen don’t take the time to learn how to utilize the tools properly and get no results or negative results and eventually give up.
D.) Leaving you with ten out of that original hundred. And while they have learned to utilize the same advantages that you have, the fact remains that their personality, approach and situations, not to mention their specific mix etc ensures that you’re not exactly going to be phero-clones of each other.
But ultimately, the notion that other people using mones might somehow cost you “the edge” you have, is a self defeating belief. It implies a scarcity mentality instead of an abundance mentality. That mentality is what will cost you any advantages in the field and not the possibility of some other guy in a club having mones as well.